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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-13T09:38:10+00:00

I’m not interested in starting another who has the bigger member VB vs C#

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I’m not interested in starting another “who has the bigger member” VB vs C# debate (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/158229/what-are-the-pros-of-vb-net seems to cover that already) though I am interested in indirect differences which may influence developing in one vs the other. All my commercial .NET development was desktop apps in VB until the last 3 months where I had a web project and decided it was a good opportunity to force myself to learn C#. In the course of doing so I’ve noticed a few non-technical differences:

  • A lot more mature open source apps and thorough examples are available in C# than for VB.

  • Third party vendors of add-ins for things like refactoring and documentation tend to support C# better than VB (if at all), with VB support for similar features from comparable C# versions often lagging behind or absent.

  • ASP.NET jobs targeting C# seem to pay around 15-20% more on average than otherwise identical jobs in VB (at least in Australia, looking on seek.com.au and careerone.com.au for reference).

The jump to ASP.NET, MVC and C# presented a lot of speed humps at once but I think was well worth it. The decision I need to make now is whether to put more energy into pursuing C# for future .NET development or if I might as well stick to VB. Are there any other points of difference between the language (other than direct language feature comparisons already covered) that one should consider in this instance?

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  1. Editorial Team

    One thing that has been widely stated when I have participated in hiring (both as a hiring manager, as well as a candidate) is that C# and Java are close enough that converting a candidate from one to the other is fairly easy, and that this is not true for a VB.NET candidate to C#, or Java. This statement has even been extended to C++, saying training a C# or Java developer (to code in C++) is easier than a VB.NET developer.

    Though I tend to disagree (I think it is more about how the person sees programming in general) I know that several large, reputable firms will accept candidates for C# or Java jobs that list C++, C# or Java experience. These same firms will in general not look at candidates who only list VB.NET, or list VB.NET as their primary language.

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